Entertainment

'The Taken King' is a confident step forward in Destiny's ongoing journey

Destiny is habit-forming, and The Taken King makes it moreso. I won't cheapen the word "addiction" by applying it here, but the most heavily invested players can definitely speak to the withdrawal-like symptoms of anger and mild depression that spring up when they fail at one of the game's time-limited, high-reward challenges.

I know this because I'm one of those fans. 700 hours invested. Three characters (plus a fourth on a separate console). All since Destiny launched in Sept. 2014. If you don't know anything at all about the game, this is a good place to start.

Now The Taken King is here with more clearly defined paths to facilitate your habitual play. There's still a repetitive grind, but new "Quests" wrap a coherent story around them, with clearly marked rewards. Quests also hide what amounts to a second campaign; after you finish The Taken King's main story, there's a whole series of missions to unlock in the sprawling "Taken War" questline.

Image: Bungie/Activision

And hey: there's a legitimate story now, too. The Taken King is filled with lively characters and spirited back and forths. The big bad, an alien god-king by the name of Oryx, is angry at our solar system for the role Guardians — that's us players — had in the death of his alien god-prince son, Crota. So he's here to mete out vengeance, threatening our continued existence with a mixed-alien army of possessed "Taken."

On your side there's Cayde-6, a rogueish, lighthearted lone wolf voiced by Nathan Fillion; Commander Zavala, a skilled warrior and natural leader, brought to life by Lance Reddick; and Eris Morn, a deeply disturbed PTSD sufferer who uses the experiences that scarred her to help your Guardians with intel. She's voiced by Morla Gorrondona.

They were all mission-givers in Destiny, and they're mission-givers still in The Taken King. But everything — the writing, the performances, the cutscenes — has a new feeling of life to it. The Cayde-6 of Year One was a no-nonsense guy; "Do this to stop this," he'd say. "Kthxbai."

Now? Cayde is a playful scoundrel. It's Fillion channeling Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds from Firefly into Destiny. And that's totally fine. Cayde's light presence makes it easier to digest all the sci-fi lore that he references. He's not alone, either; everyone has a particular sense of presence. You're more invested now because the characters addressing you feel more invested.

The early parts of the game aren't much different than they've been for the past year, beyond foundational enhancements introduced in the "2.0" update that preceded this release. Anything that falls under the umbrella of The Taken King really starts at around hour 10 or 15, after you've climbed to Year One's max character level.

And what's there is so, so good. The habit-forming side of Destiny shines in the endgame. There's a new six-player raid, far and away the best piece of endgame content Bungie has yet produced for this game. There are remixed three-player Strike missions joined by a handful of new ones. And there's a raft of hidden challenges. I've put in an embarrassing number of hours over the past two weeks, and every day still brings a new discovery.

Generally speaking, there's also a better balance in the late game, with high-level challenges catering to different types of players. New bounties and Quests give fans of competitive multiplayer new threads to tug on for sweet loot. The same goes for the cooperative side of the game, with high-end rewards hidden away behind secret quest objectives and deep within the new Dreadnaught exploration zone.

All of that is further bolstered by the 2.0 update, which made significant changes to the way loot operates (among other things). Loot drops are the dangling carrot in Destiny that keeps every player hooked. They're integral to your journey through the endgame's toughest challenges. With 2.0, higher-quality loot drops much more frequently and a new "Infusion" system allows you to power up older gear that you love using newer, more powerful gear that you don't.

Image: Bungie

It's vital to note that none of this would be possible without the "X factor" that is Destiny's player community. There's been a lively back-and-forth between fans and creators since well before the game launched last year, and you can see evidence of that constant feedback loop sprinkled throughout The Taken King.

There are pieces of the new game that seem specifically designed around the idea of community-sourced puzzle-solving. The raid is the most ready example — it's called "King's Fall," and it's both larger and more complex than both of the previous two combined — but things like the secret Black Spindle sniper rifle, only available by completing a hidden quest objective whenever a specific story mission is picked as a daily challenge, speak to that as well.

The community thrives on groupthink like that. If 10 people solve a puzzle together, thousands of others benefit from their efforts. Look at fansites like PlanetDestiny or the game's popular subreddit and you'll see a free-flowing exchange of ideas. Everyone's unified around the common goal of figuring cool stuff out.

There's a dark side to that as well. Destiny's activities all come with hard player limits. Three for a Strike or Patrol, six for a raid or competitive multiplayer. Groups with larger numbers than that face strife as some are inevitably excluded, or divided between A and B teams. I've discussed the high school gym class mentality that arises before, and it's more true now in The Taken King than it was before.

The game also just needs more work. As welcome as update 2.0's loot changes are, there's still a lot of disappointment in the way rewards are doled out in activities like the raid. Infusion helps to dull the pain of seeing identical gear drop in back-to-back challenges, but in a game that depends on a steady flow of new "OH GOD YES I GOT THE THING!" moments, the handling of random rewards doesn't feel all the way there yet.

There's also a large pile of Year One content that seems to have been left behind with the arrival of The Taken King. A handful of reworked Strikes join the selection of new ones, but there are others that remain untouched and offer minimal reward value while they're stuck in lower level playlists. The same goes for Year One's two raids and the Prison of Elders arena battles, all of which offer inconsequential rewards for endgame players.

Image: Bungie/Activision

Community is also an issue. For all the improvements made in The Taken King, there's nothing inside the game that more effectively drives group play. Resources like Reddit, fansites and "DestinyLFG" group finders are all available to anyone with a web browser close at hand, but it's a cumbersome process that really ought to exist inside the game by now.

And finally, I can't imagine what it must be like to walk into Destiny fresh at this point, but Bungie hasn't done much to explain how everything works. The expectation is still that you're active in or at least connected to the online community. Basic movement and combat is tutorialized, and certain systems get simple explanations via text-based pop-ups, but you won't really understand how Destiny works until you sit down and do some research on your own.

The great news here is that the barriers to participating are fewer in number now than they've ever been. Every one of Destiny's most pressing problems — for now — can be worked around or overcome.

The Taken King is a net win for players and creators alike. The community goodwill is sure to crumble as soon as the next egregious cheat or overpowered weapon presents itself, but that's natural. Nitpickers gonna nitpick, and they'll help make Destiny stronger in the long run. If the game's first year in release was the barest glimpse of what's possible, The Taken King demonstrates just how far Bungie can — and hopefully will — go from here.

Destiny: The Taken King

The Good

Huge amount of new material to play through • Conscientious changes respect a year's worth of fan feedback • Still just a whole lot of fun to sit down and play

The Bad

A large chunk of Year One content seemingly left behind • Absence of community tools inside the game

The Bottom Line

'The Taken King' makes 'Destiny' a flat-out better game than it was before.

Mashable
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